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Body unearthed in Brantley County believed to be Pierce County man missing 3 years

A body found off Georgia 32 in the Hortense Community in Brantley County is thought to be that of a Pierce County man missing for three years, county Sheriff Robert Thomas said Friday.

The Florida Times-Union reports (http://bit.ly/TNRTC6) that the body, suspected to be George Jack Dempsey, was found in a shallow grave behind a building off Georgia 32 that was formerly owned by Rayonier, Thomas said.

Gerald “Geral” Roberson had leased and lived on the property until his arrest in late July on a federal drug conspiracy charge. A July 1 indictment says he and Harold Lee Ragland, 47, of Hoboken, Jimmy Lott, 62, of Ambrose in Coffee County, Decia Roberson of Waycross and Harli Peritt of Blackshear conspired to possess and sell large quantities of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and prescription painkillers.

“We’ve really been looking for awhile out there,’’ Thomas said. “We couldn’t pinpoint anything. We finally came up with him.’’

The DEA, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, his office and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office are all investigating Dempsey’s death. The excavation started Thursday morning and the body was unearthed between 2 and 2:30 p.m., Thomas said.

The body has been sent to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab to establish a cause of death and for positive identification, Thomas said.

Thomas said the body was intact but it appeared to have been in the ground for years.

Investigators used a large construction scoop to remove body and surrounding earth to ensure that no evidence was lost, he said.

After their arrests on the drug charges, Ragland and Roberson were charged in August with collecting insurance on vehicles and buildings they had burned purposely.

They were charged with four counts of using the mail and one count of using a phone to make phony claims for more than $250,000 they collected from insurance companies.

Ragland has pleaded guilty to a single drug conspiracy count and one wire fraud charge while Lott pleaded guilty to using a phone to obtain drugs from Roberson.